Technically it is still the weekend here while I’m typing this blog entry, so I’m still on time. Apologies everyone for being a bit late with this update. I wanted to add more features before I release it but it contains some important fixes that people were asking for, so no big announcements.
The Bobby release contains the following changes:
- Plex Media Server 0.9.11.4 (minor update)
- NAS Navigator updated to the latest version (2.78 on PC, 2.79 on Mac)
- Network keep-alive functionality for the power-conscious
- Restart Transmission button on the admin interface
- Fix for Transmission permission issues
- Fixed an issue with the Sleep timer’s edit button
- Workaround to support /mnt/disk2 in Plex if a Linkstation is not using RAID
The network keep-alive functionality, when turned on, checks incoming network connections to the Linkstation. When there are incoming connections (for example someone’s using Plex), it will prevent the NAS from going into sleep mode. (On the Pro Duo, power saving mode is when you push the on switch fully to the upright position.)
The power saving mode was originally intended to be used together with NAS Navigator on your PC or Mac. If you have it installed, your NAS wakes up when you turn on your PC/Mac and it goes to sleep when you turn it off. The NAS Navigator tells the Linkstation to be in sync with your workflow.
The problem is, when you want to watch a movie through Plex on your TV and you don’t need any PCs turned on, your Linkstation will go to sleep after 3 minutes, right in the middle of your movie. If you turn on “network keep-alive” under System -> Power Management, Linkstation will remain turned on while you watch your movie.
Be aware that if you have torrents turned on, this will effectively make your NAS stay on forever, since you might have incoming connections anytime. (Transmission even asks your router to keep connecting to your NAS, so incoming connections can get through.) Strangely BitTorrent doesn’t seem to keep any connections open with your router, so your mileage may vary there.
Adilson and Jonathan reported an issue with the Transmission implementation. Effectively you were unable to manage your files through network shares if you downloaded them via Transmission. This is fixed in this version. Transmission scans your files during startup to fix the current issue and it also sets the permissions of freshly downloaded files correctly.
Junwei reported that he didn’t see his second disk in Plex. I always thought it’s an unsupported configuration by Buffalo to have two disks without any RAID configuration (at least JBOD so the two disks are seen as one), but apparently you can do that. If this is the case with your NAS, Plex will try and mount your second disk too, so you can choose folders from there.
I’ve added a “restart” button for Transmission on the administrative interface, so if you play around with your settings.json file for Transmission, you have an easier time to restart the agent. Here’s your chance to break your Transmission. 🙂
Because of the rushed release, I don’t have pictures of the new features yet, I’ll update the site in a bit. I’m still hacking at FlexGet to make it available and I’m still contemplating upgrading the MySQL/PHP/Lighttpd versions. The hard part is to integrate them into the firmware seamlessly. I didn’t set up an “/opt” directory in the firmware, everything is at the right place so if you want to implement your changes, you’re free to do them through optware.
Bobby raised the issue with the NAS turning off all the time, thanks for the idea. (I use my NAS always on or I turn it off manually so I didn’t even know that this was an issue.)
– GaryT
Hi!
Im a Bit confused. Is ssh already integrated? Or do I have to install a previous mod before installing the latest update?
Thanks for your reply.
Jeff
I am unable to find the network keep alive setting. Under power management I have two sections:
UPS Settings
Sleep Timer
Wondering what I could be doing wrong?
Hi Ben,
If your upgrade to the “Bobby” firmware went well, most probably you didn’t clear your browser cache.
The admin interface is very Javascript heavy and your browser caches the javascript content. Once you clear the cache, the new Javascript files will contain the necessary extra window.
Thanks for trying “Bobby”!
– GaryT
Hi Jeff,
SSH is not available in the regular custom firmware. Regular users don’t need it and it poses a security risk for them. If you need SSH, you have to install one of the developer’s version which states explicitly that SSH is enabled. (And also some other changes are made to help development of the firmware.) You can find them on the “Other versions” page right below the downloads button. The “Bobby” firmware has a developer’s version, check that out.
By the way, installing any firmware will remove all previous mods of another firmware.
– GaryT
can you add trasminssio addon “Tr Web Control” ( https://code.google.com/p/transmission-control/ ), it’s best web UI!
Hi massio,
I’ll look into it. The GUI looks nice, is there any special feature you’re looking for? What’s your experience, why is this better than the built-in GUI?
– tree navigation
– torrent priority ad file inside torrent priority
more option when add torrent:
+ multiple file same directory
+ select destination directory
try it, it’s very nice almost as much as the GUI windows.
Thanks Massio, I’ll definitely check it out.
To be honest it shouldn’t be a big deal to integrate it into the firmware but I might change the admin interface to a dropdown instead of checkboxes if we have too many options.
– GaryT
By the way, now it’s integrated into the new “Junwei” version of the firmware with the name “web-control” skin. Check it out.
Hi,
It can activate and NFS?
Thank you !
Hi Marius,
I don’t believe the original Linkstation firmware was able to use NFS and I didn’t implement it. For now, download the “BobbyDev” version which has SSH and you can implement it for yourself.
What do you use NFS for? I might be able to implement a version later. I like to gather use-cases so I can do testing.
Regards,
– GaryT
Hi Gary,
I need to activate NFS for mediaplayer. NFS is better than SAMBA
I am Linskatation LS-WXL
for video streaming SAMBA is better, NFS is better for file copy
Hi Marius and Massio,
I’ll consider implementing NFS into this custom firmware, although I’m not sure how easy it is to test it from a Windows machine. I can’t promise anything yet and for Plex (the main purpose of the plugin) you don’t really need NFS.
The scope of this firmware seems to be expanding, at least I get all kinds of requests to implement, so it’s an interesting challenge. I didn’t do NFS in the last four years but I always knew I have to get back to it at one point. 🙂
– GaryT
Hi all,
Looking into the firmware I noticed that Buffalo implemented the NFS service with an admin interface and everything, but they deliberately disable it. If I re-enable it, would that work for you?
– GaryT
Hi GaryT,
Thanks for taking the time to look into mounting the 2nd hdd in this release.
Update: It seems that selecting /mnt/disk2 still does not show any folders. /mnt/disk1 works fine just like before.
Happy Holidays!
Hi Junwei,
Apologies for my ignorance, I found out today how to set up the scenario you have. (I didn’t know you are able to delete the RAID array and format the disks separately.) I’ll test it more, the current version was a crude hack that I hoped would work.
If you are familiar with SSH, download the BobbyDev version and I’ll send you fixing instructions. If not, wait for the next release.
Happy holidays to you too!
– GaryT
[EDIT]
I’ve already found the issue. In /etc/init.d/plex.sh at line 130 it says:
if [ -z “`mount | grep /mnt/disk2`” ]; then
it should say:
if [ -n “`mount | grep /mnt/disk2`” ]; then
Note: the only change is that instead of -z, the correct byte there is -n.
If you are familiar with vi and SSH, you can change it for now, but I’ll fix this (and another minor issue I found) in the next release. Hopefully I can also implement FlexGet during the holiday so you can expect a new version soon.
Regards,
– GaryT
Hi Junwei,
Please check out the newest version of the firmware, this issue is fixed in it.
– GaryT
Hello,
In writing, the model LS-WXL, with this firmware reach up to 10 MB / s.
What is the maximum rate of writing to you?
Thank you !
Hi Marius,
I didn’t do extensive testing but my LS-WVL does a file copy from Windows to the Linkstation SMB share with an average of 20MB/s (+-3MB/s). It all depends on the file size, Windows version, Samba speed, network cables, hard drive cables and eventually the actual usage of the Linkstation. I think the WXL is the older model and the WVL succeeded it, so you have to take that into account too. Also I’m using a gigabit switch with cat6 cables and the machine and the NAS is connected through only that one switch. I’m not using oversized packets, the network configuration is very basic. My Windows machine has an SSD and the NAS contains two small (60GB each) hard drives. There might also be difference in speed depending on which RAID mode you use. I used to have RAID0 but for a test I broke it into two separate hard drives for now. I think RAID0 would be faster I can’t remember any significant difference.
I hope this helps.
– GaryT
Hi all,
just installed 1.69-bobby, and i’m having issues with the language selection when trying to add a directory, using the same browers to my pc (windows 7) it works fine, so must be an issue with the installation on the nas drive, i have an LS-CHL V2, install was fine no issue. did a Google and they recommended deleting the system and framework, this has not worked, anyone else having the issue?
Matt
Hi Matt,
I’m guessing you’re talking about the Plex page after you clicked “add section” (the plus sign).
Unfortunately the LS-CHL has a 600MHz processor which is a bit under-powered when you are doing the first setup of Plex. (Just for comparison, the LS-WVL I’m testing on has 1.6GHz, almost three times the power.)
That said, when you first want to set up Plex, it loads for quite a while for me. I’ve seen the issue you have experienced and I could always solve it with some patience. Here’s my method:
1. Load up Plex and the mentioned screen.
2. Wait about a minute until “English” appears in the language box.
3. Finish your setup, the rest of it should respond properly.
In your case, step #2 might take up to three minutes because of your NAS’s CPU. Occasionally the text “English” didn’t appear on first try, in that case cancel the box and try again. I never had an issue on the second try, but it takes ages right after you installed the firmware…
Don’t click next if the text didn’t appear, even if it’s clickable. It didn’t go through for me if the text for language didn’t appear.
You can reset the Plex databse (“deleting the system and framework” as you put it) with “Reset Media Server Settings” on the admin interface. The system files for Plex are on the NAS’s system partition, those can only be rewritten by reflashing the firmware on the NAS.
Good luck with testing, please report back with any results.
One last “last chance” troubleshooting idea is to clear your browser cache. I’m not sure how the Plex web service is built, it might help.
– GaryT
Hi,
Just installed your FW and Plex works great with my LG Smart TV. please keep up the great work.
Thanks ElChupete, I’m glad it works for you. You gave the first feedback regarding LG TVs, I’m very happy about it.
Using Linkstation LS-X2. I tried this method but after 15 seconds, I get this screen: http://puu.sh/dMmpY/73c0cfac5b.png. So clearly there’s a timeout somewhere. Do you have any suggestions where to look to extend this timeout?
Hi Moriarty,
I’m not familiar with the inner workings of Plex, but is it possible that something is wrong with the folder you were trying to add? The Plex web files are stored under /usr/local/plexroot/lib/Resources in the firmware, if you have SSH access you can check it out. I’ve found multiple Timeout settings there, I don’t know which one does what.
– GaryT
Hi,
I have the same problem as Moriarty. Sometimes it works and I can add new media, but often it does not work and I get the same error. I think it is a timeout problem. How can I access the NAS via SSH? What is the password?
Den
Hi Den,
Username is root, password is password and you have to have the dev version of the firmware. (Next version will have better SSH control.) In the dev version you should be able to log in.
Did you check the Plex forums? Someone might have come across this before. I’ll check it too.
– GaryT
Hi, Thanks for providing this. The upgrade works fine, but for some reason on my Linkstation LS-QVL. when I go to: Extensions > Media Servers.
I can not see PLEX. The only servers showing are:
DLNA Server:
iTunes Server:
Squeezebox Server:
Have I done something wrong? All I’ve done is upgraded the firmware with this version.
Thank in advance
Dip.
Hi Dip,
Clear your browser cache, that should solve it.
Hi, thanks. worked perfectly.
Regards
Dip.